A pretty, fair-haired girl, who looked not more than eighteen, sat in a forlorn attitude in the park near the Imperial Palace at Posen. Passers-by glanced at her curiously, and whenever she lifted her soft blue eyes they saw that they were wet with tears. When a stranger paused as if to address her the girl instantly froze, and there was something about her small mouth that caused him to change his mind.

Presently, however, a tall, elderly man of distinguished appearance came strolling towards her, and simultaneously the girl's tears began to fall faster than ever. Sobs were choking her when he came opposite her, and he would have had to be hard-hearted to have passed on without noticing her. But Count Renenski, millionaire, patriot and statesman, had a generous disposition, and the sight of beauty in distress claimed his sympathy at once. With a courteous bow he asked if he could be of assistance, and the girl, surveying him through her tears, made room for him on the seat. She was so timid and frightened and appealing that she seemed like a gazelle, and the count, a noted philanthropist, thought he had never seen so dainty a vision.

"I am Count Renenski," he said kindly. "Won't you let me help you? I do not suppose you have ever heard of me before, but I think I can be of use."

She laid one small hand on his arm.

"You have a face that tells me I can trust you," she murmured, her form still trembling, "and I will tell you all, but first you must swear not to reveal what I am going to say."

He gave the promise readily, his curiosity piqued by her tragic manner of expressing herself.

"I feel safe with you," she whispered in a caressing voice. "God has been good to me this morning. I have found a friend, count. When I tell you that my name is Anna Schnieder it will convey nothing to you, because that is only the name I was given to conceal my true position. I was comparatively happy until two years ago. Until then I thought I was merely the daughter of an honest shoemaker and his wife, though I was puzzled that they were able to give me a first-class education. Then I discovered that some one was providing everything for me. Judge of my astonishment when by accident I learned that that some one was His Majesty the German Emperor."

The count stiffened perceptibly, and his eyes distended. He was one of the leaders of the National Polish party which demanded to be freed from the intolerable tyranny of Germany. He had been one of the Polish aristocrats who had refused to attend the Kaiser's receptions in Posen, the capital of Prussian Poland, and he was keenly interested in all that referred to the man he and his countrymen loathed.

"Yes, go on," he said under his breath. "You can confide in me. I never betray a trust."

"I am sure you never have," she said, giving him another appealing glance. "But to proceed. I am naturally quick-witted, and I was able to put two and two together. I began to recall incidents of my childhood, and after a while I got my foster-mother—for that is all she is—to answer certain questions. Within an hour I knew the truth. I, Anna Schnieder, was in reality Her Royal Highness Princess Anna of Prussia, the daughter of His Majesty the Emperor." Count Renenski started to his feet. Was the girl fooling him? He sharply scrutinized her features, but she bore it bravely. There was certainly something aristocratic about her. He sank on to the seat again, and indicated he was listening.

"The year before the Kaiser married the Kaiserin he was in Posen"—the count ejaculated that he remembered it—"and there he met and fell in love with a Polish girl of the name of Vera Savanoff."

"The Savanoffs!" cried the count in amazement. "Why, I knew the family well. And there was a girl too—several girls, in fact. I have often wondered what became of them. But proceed, mademoiselle," he added with a courteous inclination of the head. "I will not interrupt you again."

Encouraged by his attention, the girl proceeded to amplify her story. She told of a mysterious marriage in a Polish church—long since destroyed—between the then Prince William of Prussia and Vera Savanoff, and how after the ceremony the girl had disappeared. She had been taken to a castle in the Black Forest, and there the Kaiser had visited her regularly for five years. Then a child had been born, and that child was christened Anna Schnieder. Meanwhile William had married a Princess of the Blood Royal, and was the father of a family, but no one suspected that in the sight of God the Kaiser had only one legal wife, and that she was Vera Savanoff. When after the birth of her daughter poor Vera died mysteriously the Kaiser suddenly lost all interest in his first romance, and Anna hinted that William II connived at her death.

It was an amazing story, and would have been unbelievable had she not produced proofs. The count was still trying to understand it all when she thrust into his hands a bundle of papers which she had carried concealed under her blouse.

"These are some of the proofs," she said frankly. "I know it is difficult to credit my story—sometimes I can hardly believe it myself."

The papers included a certificate of marriage between Prince William of Prussia and Vera Savanoff, signed by the officiating priest, but without witnesses' signatures. Another certificate showed when Anna Schnieder had come into the world. But the most important documents were two letters from the Crown Prince of Germany couched in intimate terms. One of them contained the sentence, "I am sorry Father treated you so badly. Surely he must know it was not your fault."

The letters completely convinced the count of the genuineness of the fair damsel's amazing and romantic story. He knew the handwriting of the Crown Prince of Germany very well, for he had lately been in correspondence on the subject of the treatment of Polish conscripts in the Prussian Army. The prince, who was then doing all he could to gain popularity, and so weaken his father's position, had planned to win the sympathies of the Poles by a pretence of affection for them, and Count Renenski, as an influential aristocrat, had been selected by him as the person most likely to further his objects.

When he had once more reaffirmed his promise not to reveal what she had told him, Anna consented to accompany him to his residence. She hastily dried her eyes, and her recovery was marvellously quick, for she was all smiles five minutes later as they were leaving the park. She had insisted upon the count taking care of the papers for her.

"I am only a weak girl," she said with delightful humility, "and when the Kaiser learns that I know who I am he will set his agents to work to try to get hold of my papers. But I am so happy now that I have found a brave friend."

The count owned a magnificent castle in Posen, where, as he was a bachelor, his widowed sister kept house for him. The lady received Anna graciously, and Anna on her part was relieved to find that the count's relative was a small, inoffensive creature, who evidently thought that her brother could do no wrong. When she saw him pay the utmost deference to the young lady he regarded as a princess, she followed suit, and Anna became a sort of uncrowned queen of the mansion.

It was not surprising that the count, who was over sixty, should soon begin to feel tenderly disposed towards his protegÉ. She was heart and soul a Pole, she told him.

"I want to vindicate my mother's fair name," she cried, "and she was a daughter of Poland, the land I love."

When the count asked her to marry him she gave a tearful consent, but only on the condition that when she had the right to call him husband he would help her to prove to the world that she was the legitimate daughter of the German Emperor. Count Renenski willingly agreed, because he saw in the affair a chance to discredit the Kaiser.

It was arranged that the count should settle a sum equivalent to fifty thousand pounds on his bride, and he instructed his lawyers accordingly. He also gave her jewellery worth thousands of pounds, much of it family heirlooms, and he placed a thousand pounds to her credit at a bank in Posen. He declared that the most fascinating of sights was Anna in the act of drawing a cheque, for she revelled in the unusual luxury, and her joy was childlike and beautifully innocent and infectious.

The wedding was fixed for the tenth of July, 1910, and a week before Anna went to stay with a female cousin of the count's at a house twenty miles from Posen. It was arranged that they were not to meet again until she arrived in the state carriage belonging to the family at the ancient church where the ceremony was to be performed.

But Count Renenski never saw her again. On the eighth of July she told her hostess that she was going to drive into Posen to do some shopping, and as the old lady was indisposed she went alone. That night she took train to a remote German village, and with her travelled the family jewels of the Renenskis and the sum of three thousand pounds, most of which she had borrowed from the count's cousin.

It was some little time before the disappointed and enraged nobleman would confess that he had been swindled by as clever a German adventuress as had ever appeared in Poland, but it is doubtful if he ever learnt that Anna Schnieder had purposely planted herself on that seat in the park to wait until he came along, or that she had looked up his history and had discovered amongst other things that he was in the habit of taking a morning constitutional, and, knowing how generous and impulsive he was, had invented a yarn about an ill-treated Polish mother and a brutal German father, and, as the count's hatred of the Kaiser was common knowledge, she had not found it difficult to fool him.

He came to the conclusion that all the papers she had shown him were forgeries, but, as a matter of fact, only the certificates came under that head, for the letters from the Crown Prince were genuine enough, though the words he had used bore quite a different interpretation to that which Renenski had given them. Anna had been at one time a waitress in a certain Bonn beer-house where she had made the acquaintance of the Crown Prince, and had become one of his earliest friends. He had taken her about the country, and had even affronted Berlin society by appearing with her in a box at the Apollo Theatre, and drawing attention to both of them by shouting at the performers. The scandal had been reported to the Kaiser, who had ordered Police-President von Jagow to make short work of Anna, and the police had accordingly forcibly carried her away from the hotel where she was stopping, and had threatened her with imprisonment if ever she went near the prince again.

Anna had, of course, written to the Crown Prince, and he had in response sent her the two letters which she found so useful in her career as a brazen-faced adventuress. For the prince had regaled her with many stories of his father's escapades in the days when the present ex-Kaiser was a very young man, and Anna, being clever and unscrupulous, had treasured up memories of these anecdotes with a view to making use of them later.

Count Renenski made a guarded complaint to Berlin, and when the matter was referred back to Posen, and the German Chief of Police there called upon him to obtain fuller particulars, the count, having in the meantime remembered that he had pledged his word in writing to Anna that on their marriage he would start an anti-Prussian campaign, thought it more discreet to withdraw the charge, although by so doing he lost the only chance he had of recovering the very valuable Renenski family jewels.

By now Anna was at Homburg in the guise of a wealthy German baroness who had just lost her husband. She spent the count's money freely, and her jewellery was the talk of the place. She certainly looked exquisitely lovely in black, and her dainty youthfulness made her a welcome addition to the society of the famous German resort. It was impossible to imagine for a moment that such an innocent-looking being could utter a lie, and, as she had plenty of ready cash, there was never any suspicion that she was an adventuress.

Men were such fools where a pretty face was concerned! How she laughed as she recalled the count's love-making! But sometimes she sighed, too, because she knew that he would have made a good husband. Anna, however, had a husband already, a great, lumbering person with an enormous appetite, who followed the occupation of a brewer's drayman!

That was the reason why she had fled from Posen before the marriage day. She had often had reason to curse the mischance that had caused her when a village maiden to accept Ernst Rippelmayer, but she had not then known what she was capable of, and Rippelmayer owned his own cottage, and was considered a safe and steady man.

It happened that amongst the hotel guests was a Colonel Bernstorff, a distant relative of the late German Ambassador to the United States. He paid Anna some attention, because, having only a small income, he was desperately in need of financial reinforcements, having wasted the fortune his first wife had brought him.

In order to impress Anna, or the Baroness von Hotenfeld, as she called herself, he pretended to be very well off, and whenever she accompanied him to any entertainment he spent money with the freedom of a man who has more than he knows what to do with. They soon proceeded from the formally polite stage to the confidential, and before the Homburg season was over it was understood that they were engaged.

For various reasons Colonel Bernstorff could not marry at once, but it was agreed that six months later they should become man and wife. This suited Anna all right, and when she parted from him she went on to Crefeld, where she intended to see if she could swindle some of the officers of the garrison out of a big amount. She wanted it badly, for she had been afraid to ask the colonel for a loan, because she had no desire to give him a chance to break their engagement. Bernstorff belonged to a well-known German family. He was a member of several exclusive Berlin clubs, and he had the entrÉe to the Royal Palaces. She knew that when they were married she would be presented at Court, and once that happened there was no reason why she should not, with the secret aid of her old friend, the Crown Prince, become quite a personage in society.

But meanwhile she must "raise the wind" somehow, and so to Crefeld she went, where at the time a battalion of the Prussian Guards was stationed. It included amongst its officers several rich young noodles, and it was to lay siege to the latter that Anna, with her most fascinating gowns, started for the town.

She undoubtedly had an alluring manner, and shortly after her arrival her apartments were frequented by several of the officers. Anna, still maintaining her bogus rank of baroness, provided all sorts of gambling games, in which she declined to take part, declaring that she had never played for money in her life. Occasionally she would back the luck of a young officer, and when he won she was rewarded with a pair of gloves or some similar trifle. Anna would accept the gift with as much gratitude and delight as though it were a thousand guinea bracelet, but all the time she was waiting to achieve her object. The officer she was "shadowing" had just come of age, and she knew that he had a large amount at his bankers which he was doing his best to get rid of.

One night he lost all his ready money—a considerable sum—and as he was anxious to go on Anna lent him a thousand marks (fifty pounds) with which to continue. But his luck was terrible, and eventually he rose from the table thousands to the bad. It was nothing to him, however, and after a touching interview with "adorable Anna," as he called her, he was assisted to his carriage by his servant. Next day he called and left a cheque for the amount the impostor had lent him. The adventuress had been waiting for this, and she cleverly altered the carelessly-drawn cheque from a thousand marks to one hundred thousand. It was promptly honoured by the Berlin bank, and as soon as Anna had the whole amount she prepared for flight. But an hour before her train was due to leave she was arrested at the station. The Berlin bank had on second thoughts telegraphed to the officer asking for confirmation of the cheque. He had replied denying that he had recently drawn one for such a large amount, and Anna's capture followed.

It was not very difficult for the police to find proof of many of her swindles. She had imposed upon scores of tradespeople, and had obtained a lot of money by false pretences from elderly and infatuated Huns. A very heavy indictment was presented against her, but it was for the forgery of the cheque that the judge sentenced her to three years' penal servitude.

Anna was stunned by her misadventure. She had hitherto been so successful as an impostor that it seemed as if she was immune from failure, but now she was a convict, destined to pass three long years in a horrible German prison, and when she heard that she was to be sent to the women's convict establishment at West Gradenz she nearly collapsed, for it was one of the worst, the severe discipline frequently driving weak-minded convicts insane. There was no appeal, however, and one grey October morning she found herself handcuffed to another convict, and passing through the gloomy portals of the ghastly prison. It was a rule that each new-comer should be inspected by the governor, and Anna was in due course brought before that all-powerful official, the man who was to have the power of life and death over her until she had served her sentence.

She had been roughly thrust into a bare hall with white-washed walls, and she was staring ferociously at the hard earth floor when her companion whispered that the governor was there. Then she started up, and was petrified when she realized that the governor was Colonel Bernstorff.

He recognized her instantly, but with admirable self-control gave no sign. His appointment to this important post had been unexpected, and he had striven to obtain it so that he might be able to marry his fascinating sweetheart at once. And now she was a convict in his charge!

He tried to ignore her, but somehow she had completely won his heart, and a few days after her arrival he made a pretext for seeing her alone in his office. By now Anna, who had guessed that he would not be able to resist her, had compiled a moving story of persecution at the hands of her father, the Kaiser, and when the governor asked for an explanation she confessed, amid sobs, that she was the victim of a political intrigue. Except for certain additions occasioned by the new situation, it was the story she had duped Count Renenski with.

The governor was persuaded to believe her, despite the fact that he had in the prison archives the papers relating to her conviction, and he used all his family's influence to get her a pardon. When this was granted he married her, and, resigning his position, took her for a long tour, Anna declaring that they need not bother about money, as she would shortly receive a million from her real father, the Kaiser. But the honeymoon lasted only three weeks, for Anna was arrested on a charge of bigamy, and it was only when Colonel Bernstorff was confronted by her real husband that he admitted he had made a fool of himself. He thereupon abandoned the impostor to her fate, and she was eventually sent back to complete her original sentence, plus one of five years, for bigamy, and when the war ended she was still in the gloomy prison of West Gradenz.